


Through Smears and Words Snide

by Byacolate



Category: Borderlands
Genre: Courtship, Getting Together, Other, Weird Courtship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-07
Updated: 2015-12-18
Packaged: 2018-05-05 10:36:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5372219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Byacolate/pseuds/Byacolate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a gun on his doorstep, which might be an understatement.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [robospookguetti](https://archiveofourown.org/users/robospookguetti/gifts).



> robospock asked for Zer0 and Rhys' first romantic moments, which turned into weird courtship rituals, which turned into Misunderstanding Central, Population: Rhys - The Quadrilogy.
> 
>  
> 
> [THIS ART BY ROBOSPOCK! WOW !!](http://robospookguetti.tumblr.com/post/134719342943/rhys-is-slender-as-a-rocket-launcher-in-case)
> 
>  
> 
> [And more very very cute art by deersweets!](http://deersweets.tumblr.com/post/140674774672)

There’s a gun on his doorstep.

 

Which… might be an understatement.

  
There is a small cannon on his doorstep, almost as tall as he is, the massive barrel covered in Torgue checkerboard. So, to be specific, there is an explosive rocket-launcher leaning casually against the doorframe of his apartment. The bright red ribbon tied cheerily to the grip indicates that it was intended as a gift.

 

Probably.

 

Rhys stands in the middle of his open door and stares it down as he patches through to Vaughn’s ECHO.

 

“Hey,” he interrupts Vaughn’s groggy protests, “who do we know that would just… give me a rocket launcher?”

 

Vaughn grunts quietly, and Rhys can hear him fumble for his glasses “Who _don’t_ we know that would just give you a rocket launcher?”

 

“Point.” He reaches out and gives it an experimental tug. And then another. “Better question: who do we know that could feasibly drag this thing more than a couple inches, because buddy… I am not that guy.”

 

“What’s happening? Did somebody give you a rocket launcher?”

 

“Nah, I woke you up purely for hypothetical conjecture, man. You know how it is.”

 

“It’s too early for your sass. I’m hanging up.”

 

“Wait, no! _You’re_ muscle-bound. Do you think you can come up later and… do something with this? It’s just here on my doorstep.”

 

Vaughn heaves another dramatic sigh. “You know, you could just leave it there. Someone’s bound to steal it within the day.”

 

“Huh.” Rhys cocks his head. “There’s a thought. But I think it’s a gift?”

 

“You don’t sound so sure.”

 

“I mean, it’s got a bow. That usually means present, right?”

 

“Could be a Trojan Horse type situation. Is it big enough to fit a small militia?”

 

“I don’t think bandits are that organized. But... yes.”

 

Vaugh whistles lowly.

 

“You can give me a couple more hours of sleep, or cut out the middle man and call Fiona and Sasha. We’d just end up calling them anyway because they are like… a million times more well equipped for heavy lifting than we are. Or you could use your superpowered robot arm.”

 

“Ooh, hey, yeah,” Rhys says, flexing his fingers. “My arm is so much less likely to insult me than any of you.”

 

“There you go, bro.”

 

“Thanks for the almost-help,” Rhys tells him, and listens to Vaughn groan in lieu of goodbye before they disconnect. He takes a good long look at his prosthetic before he makes another call entirely. “Hey, Elbie. Could you do me a huge favor?”

 

He kills time by scanning the entire piece with his ECHOeye and picking through its nuances. The notes at the base of the report surprise him. It’s a code of some sort: x0x0. He makes a mental note to look it up later when he hears Elbie’s stomping and Gortys’ chatter from down the hall, and closes the report.

 

It is forgotten in exactly the amount of time it takes for Gortys to roll up and regale him about their supremely eventful trip up the elevator.

 

In retrospect, Rhys is a bit of a dunce. He’ll readily admit to that.


	2. Chapter 2

Several weeks pass after the notable rocket launcher incident. It’s tucked away under his bed, for lack of a better place, and all but forgotten. When he nearly steps on the box that appears at his doorstep one afternoon, Rhys doesn’t make any connections.

 

Instead, he delicately lifts the lid to find half a dozen chocolate tarts inside. After he phones around to ask after the sender and none of his friends confess, he promptly dumps the box in the garbage. Fiona and Yvette advise caution against poison, or tiny glass shards tucked away inside deceptively delicious treats, and Rhys is a better-safe-than-sorry kind of guy. Sometimes the leftover Hyperion employees can get a little _too_ intense with their cultism.

 

The morning after, he does step on the second box. Only barely, though, and entirely by accident - the cookies inside are just barely misshapen by his carelessness.

 

They smell amazing, though, and rich, and fresh. So he dissects two of them in search of crushed glass, and takes a few deep whiffs as though he might be able to discern a poisoned cookie from a safe one, and when he realizes that that’s impossible, decides with a shrug to risk it.

 

The cookies are amazing. He has a stomachache after four, but that’s probably attributed to how quickly he ate them as opposed to hypothetical arsenic, and he doesn’t regret it for a minute.

 

It isn‘t until he neatly seals the box to save the rest for later that he notices the thin flap of paper on the top of the box, the same stark white of the lid, which he lifts with his thumb. In neat, somewhat boxy penmanship, is written only one word: _Enj0y_.

 

Honestly, he doesn‘t think too much of it. If it isn‘t any of his friends leaving these things for him, then it‘s any of the other thousands of people milling about what‘s left of Helios. Most of them harbor good intent toward him. Picking one out of the many, if it even is just one, would be a feat - an unnecessary one at that.

 

The baked goods keep coming at random intervals every day for a week, each with the same identical little note, until they stop just as quickly as they began. Rhys won‘t lie -  after three days pass with no anonymous gifts, he mourns their loss.

 

His friends are woefully, if characteristically, unsympathetic.

 

“Did you even write your secret admirer a thank you note?” Vaughn asks over lunch on the fourth day. Rhys did not. Rhys also elects not to tell him about the mustard smeared on his chin.

 

But he‘s definitely suffering withdrawal symptoms, so he scours the whole base from bakeries to snack vendors to reconfigured Claptraps programmed with experimental pâtissier AI. His “Enj0y” treats are nowhere to be found.

 

“So they were probably homemade,” Sasha says the next day over takeout. She points an accusatory finger at him. “Who‘ve you fooled into crushing on you? What was your method? A feat of strength? Flash a little leg?”

 

“Were you deep-throating a hot dog again?” Fiona asks, thoughtful. “Rhys, I thought we told you not to do that in public.”

 

“Oh my god.”

  
Rhys doesn‘t bring up the mystery of the sweets again, and in time, slowly, the incident fades into memory.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's entirely robospock's idea, with a tiny deviation.

A month or so passes and a pair of Vault Hunters breeze through for supplies. Despite the fact that one of them looks like she could probably crush a man with a single thought, and the other is an unnecessarily _built_ Hyperion experiment gone wrong (or right), they don‘t pose a threat.

 

... Not to civilians, anyway. Rhys is sure that they're plenty threatening.

 

They only stay for a handful of days, wiping out nearby bandit camps in exchange for supplies. Before they set out again by the end of the week, Maya takes Rhys aside and hands him a folded piece of paper.

 

It’s bloodstained. That‘s encouraging.

 

“Thanks?” Rhys says, but when he starts to unfold it, she stays his hand.

 

“Maybe open that alone.” She sounds a little unsure herself. “To be honest, I have no idea what‘s in there, but I got a favor out of the deal for delivering it. Might as well do it right.”

 

Rhys has no idea what to make of that, but he complies anyway because, as it turns out, she _can_ crush man with a thought.

 

He musters enough patience to last until the elevator ride that shuttles him from the Hub of Heroism to residency.

 

_The passage of time_  
_Observes no great or small change_  
 _In ardor or death_

 

And that‘s... it. Rhys checks the back in case he‘s missed the punch line, but no. There‘s nothing more to glean from it.

 

Fiona is utterly unsympathetic when he meets her for drinks. Her chin‘s propped against her fist and she ignores a good 60% of everything Rhys says. Whether she‘s more upset that Maya‘s gone, or that she caught her consensually tucked against Krieg‘s side at sunset, Rhys isn‘t sure Fiona herself knows.  Actually, they might have convened for _her_ woes and not his, but over rum, it‘s all semantics.

 

“Sounds like something a serial killer might say,” she tells him dully, tilting her glass to the side. Rhys balks.

 

“That‘s the opposite of what I wanted to hear,” he mumbles, squinting at the open letter. “Because it‘s exactly what my paranoia told me. I was sort of hoping you‘d discourage that.”

 

“Yeah, well.” She heaves a sigh. “We don‘t always get what we hope for.”

  
As far as reassurances go, it‘s a little stale.


	4. Chapter 4

Rhys poses a request to Elbie to room together for the foreseeable future. Fortunately, Elbie‘s receptive to the idea.

 

Robots are so much better than people.

 

(He‘s gonna let the statistics Elbie spits out about serial killers slide, just this once. Probability is something robots just _do_.)

 

With Elbie comes Gortys, more often than not, so for the subsequent handful of weeks, Rhys‘ apartment is a robot party. That is, until Elbie decides that rooming with Rhys to ward against a benevolent boogeyman is cramping his style. Gortys offers, magnanimously, to serve as bodyguard on a more permanent basis instead, but if Elbie‘s unconcerned, Rhys doesn‘t know why _he_ shouldn‘t be.

 

And honestly, he doesn’t know how to answer the hundred questions she has about the missile launcher gathering dust under his bed.

 

“If you’re still spooked, Rhys,” she tells him, trailing slowly backwards out the door as Elbie takes his leave, “you should call a friend to come watch you while you sleep!”

 

Rhys laughs, leaning against the door frame. “Trust me, Gortys - it wouldn’t be in my best interest to ask any of my friends to watch me sleep.”

 

“Are you sure?” she asks, tapping at her own metallic fingers. “Not even Vaughn? He loves you so much!”

 

“Love dwindles when you’re forced to humor your friend’s paranoia at your own expense. Or, so I’m told.”

 

“What about Fiona? She’s so nice!”

 

Rhys winces. “Fiona’s compassion is… selective.”

 

Gortys hums, balling up her little hands and planting them on the widest circumference of her little round body.

 

“Well…. What about that tall one you like so much, with the sword and the cryptic poetry? Seemed pretty vigilant to me! What’d you call ‘em? Uno? Quatro?”

 

“Zer0?” Rhys says, straightening his posture. Gortys waves a hand.

 

“No, that can’t be it,” she dismisses. “That’d be silly.”

 

“It’s definitely Zer0.”

 

She squints up at him for a long moment before she throws both hands up. “If you say so! You’re the one with the crush!”

 

“Aha! Oh, Gortys. Gortys, Gortys, Gortys.”  Rhys laughs desperately, looking down the hallway for… just in case. “I definitely don’t have a crush on… on Zer0.”

 

Gortys exchanges a look with Elbie, and it’s supremely weird how they both manage nonverbal communication without any actual body language. She turns back to Rhys after a moment with an indulgent smile.

 

“... Okie-dokie! Well, that’s sure gonna be disappointing for them to hear, what with the note they asked me to bring you this morning, and all. Oh well! Rejection’s a bitter pill to swallow, but what must be done, must be -”

 

“Note? Gortys, what note?”

 

“Hmm? Oh! The note from Zer0!” She glides close and elbows Rhys in the hip with a conspiratorial gleam in her eye. “The one you _don’t have a crush on_. Gave it to me this morning!” She pats herself down. “Now, where did I put it…”

 

“You returned it to Zer0,” Elbie reminds her, “and suggested they deliver it in person because boldness is arguably more romantic than mystery.”

 

“Oh gosh, well, that doesn’t sound like me,” Gortys says.

 

“I may have fabricated the last part.”

 

“Okay, hold on,” Rhys says, running a hand through his hair. “Zer0 is… is here. And has a message for me. And you told them to give it to me in person.”

 

“You really have to stop stating the obvious,” Gortys says, patting his arm consolingly.

 

“Please try not to panic,” Elbie says, before Rhys slowly closes the door on both of them and leans against it.

 

Too late for _that_.

 

He takes a deep breath and pats his face twice, hard, before making a dive for his bedroom closet. Can he pull off casually cool? Probably not. Effortlessly badass? _Definitely_ not. But he does have a lot of black, so that will have to do.

 

With no idea when Zer0 will come, or if they’ll come at all, Rhys tidies every room of his apartment like his life depends on it.

 

He’s in the middle of of having a mild anxiety attack over the kitchen sink when he hears two sharp knocks at the front door. Rhys takes a look at himself and desperately wishes he’d gone casual instead of…. all black, but it’s too late for that now. It’s too late for anything now. He’s delving into melodrama, so it'd probably best for everyone involved if he'd just open the goddamn door.

 

He’s gonna be cool about this. Rhys can do cool. It’s just opening the door and greeting the person on the other side like any other human being would. So he opens the door - that bit done, no trouble. And he looks up a little, because it’s Zer0, and Zer0 is tall. Exceptionally tall. “Hey - hi!” Rhys says. It’s just two syllables, and his voice only breaks on the second one. He clears his throat and tries again. “Uh… fancy meeting you here! What, um. What brings you around? To these parts?”

 

He tries to lean casually against the door frame. He tries very, very hard.

 

“I’ve been evasive,” Zer0 starts, and Rhys’ shoulder slips. He catches himself against the frame with limited stumbling.

 

“You’ve - what?”

 

“I’m exceedingly sneaky. A talent, I’m told.”

 

“Yeah?” Rhys blinks. “I don’t… um. I don’t know what that means. I mean - I know what it means, but not in… _this_ context?”

 

“You liked the pastries.”

 

“I liked the…” Rhys blinks again. Twice. “What?”

 

“Cookies. Tarts. Cupcakes. But you’ve never used the gun.”

 

Rhys’ mind categorically refuses to connect the dots laid out before him. Too much, too soon. His heart would sooner stop beating dead away in his chest.

 

Once upon of time, fully tooting his own horn, Rhys might’ve called himself a bit of a wiz kid. At the moment, it takes a great deal of effort just to drag his jaw up from where it’s fallen halfway to his knees.

 

“You…?”

 

“Human courtship is strange, and frivolous, and largely subjective.”

 

“I…!”

 

“There was a note, as well. Was it delivered?”

 

“Um.”

 

Rhys’ voice has risen at least three octaves in the past twenty seconds. Fiona would be keeping track.

 

“You’re flushed.” Zero’s head tips just slightly to the side. “From what?”

 

“Zer0.” Rhys clears his throat. “That poem was… from you? Not a serial killer?”

 

It’s only after Rhys says it and the silence stretches between them that he sees how that might be taken the wrong way. Or worse - the right way.

 

“I prefer the term ‘assassin’, but definitions vary.”

 

“ _You_ sent me _cookies_.”

 

Zer0 straightens, marginally. Like their posture wasn’t perfect enough. Rhys swallows. “And a poem. And a really… like, _upsettingly_ big gun.”

 

A bright red x0x0 flashes from Zer0’s helmet, and Rhys… well, Rhys wants the ground to swallow him whole. “I,” he says slowly, “am an idiot.”

 

“I find you charming,” Zer0 says, quite boldly, and Rhys can feel himself go red to the tips of his toes. Laughing breathlessly, Rhys presses the back of his knuckles to his mouth. Then, with a start, he steps back.

 

“This! Probably isn’t the best place for this conversation, and I’m being rude keeping you… here, on the doorstep. Please, come in.”

  

There's a Vault Hunter on his doorstep, which... might be an understatement.

 

There's a vault-hunting assassin on his doorstep, complete with glowing sword and a uniform that clings to every inch of their body. To be specific, there's a lethal, questionably-human slayer of men stepping over the doorstep and into Rhys' apartment.

  

They have a penchant for gift-giving in the name of affection, and the focal point of that affection is _Rhys_.

 

He should ask why, but he won't. For the first time since this mystery began, Rhys is just going to enjoy it - poetry, firearms, and all.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Glass Animal's "Golden Antlers"
> 
>    
> Inquire about fic requests [here!](http://wardencommando.tumblr.com/ask)  
> If you are so inclined, feel free to follow [my Tumblr](http://wardencommando.tumblr.com/).


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